


Day's Dawning

by Harukami



Category: CS Friedman - Coldfire Trilogy
Genre: M/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-05 18:07:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to chibimazoku (on LJ) for the beta. &hearts Mwa. &hearts</p>
    </blockquote>





	Day's Dawning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elysian](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=elysian).



> Thanks to chibimazoku (on LJ) for the beta. &hearts Mwa. &hearts

 

 

The fact is, Damien's never been particularly good at giving up.

***

The fae swirl about him in malevolent violet whorls and loops as the Hunter pins Damien down with the lean, ice-cold frame of his body.

Damien struggles against that, not ceasing even when that makes the Hunter's thin lips part in something almost like a smile; it would be worse to simply allow this to happen. The biting cold of his bonds makes it painful to even move; the biting cold of the Hunter's body is hardly better.

Slowly Damien draws a breath. "Gerald," he says, warningly.

"Reverend Vryce," the Hunter answers, and it's still nearly smirking at him. It presses his mouth to Damien's, chillingly, and Damien wrenches his head to the side, refusing to let his tongue come out to warm his lips. Despite himself, his heart is beating faster. It's not fear, exactly; it's certainly not arousal.

More, he thinks, it's challenge; can he survive this, can he take on the Hunter and live, can he make it through whatever Tarrant wants and strike back.

He has always known the Hunter is a revolting creature; known it with every death on his head, known it with every nightmare, every fear redoubled and thrown back at him--

Fear.

He is afraid; it's not exactly something he can help. Men shouldn't be in this position to begin with -- not the sex; Damien's not interested but he doesn't particularly care what people do with their free time, no. But the lack of power. The Hunter had told him before, with the situation of the Master of Lema, that women were sometimes the most dangerous because this _fear_ was always over them, somewhere in the distance -- a fear he'd doubtless known well from their own fear of him. Nobody had ever questioned that the Hunter who preyed on woman was, after all, a man.

That the Hunter is attempting to make _him_ feel the same thing is hardly a pleasant thought.

Nor is the thought that he's _feeding_ on it. Damien strains once more against his bonds, which bite into him like they'd eat away at wrists and ankles, and then falls back. Even if he could escape them, he doubts he could escape. It's not right; Gerald is a slight, lean man for all his height, while Damien's always kept a solid bulk to him. But he's strong; does the dark pact that sustains him increase that as well?

Damien looks at him.

The Hunter looks back through eyes gone black as true night, hungry dark whirlpools that threaten to suck him in. Damien can't seem to turn away from that, from staring into them and feeling, through the channel between them, the Hunter's demonic essence swallow his fear, tear it from him with a sensation of sharp teeth and claws. He can't look away, even as the Hunter's body makes a sudden movement and there is pain, startling amounts of pain. Damien gasps, too strangled to be called a cry.

Is this where I will die? he wonders. Is this what the Hunter wants from our bond, to seek out my fears and devour me along with them?

But, he realizes, as the Hunter moves, something is wrong. Gerald is of the demonic; he cannot tolerate fire or sunlight or healing. Even a perverted form of sex such as rape, he shouldn't be able to tolerate either. It would _burn_ him to do so, burn him with the heat that comes from approaching life.

Startled, almost confused, Damien opens his mouth to confront Gerald about this--

***

Damien wakes in a cold sweat despite his flush and just lies there for a long few minutes, staring up at the darkened ceiling. The world he wakes into is not the world of his dream -- no fae. No Hunter. Nothing at all of the reality of this new world. His unpleasant lustful dream won't even make any constructs now -- no faeborn succubus (or incubus, and how he doesn't even _want_ to think about that horrible possibility) to try to feed on him, born from his combined desire and fear.

Nothing of the old world lingers but the nightmare.

Damien forces himself to rise after a moment and splash his face with water from the basin beside the bed. It had been cold when it was brought in; it's lukewarm, now, but does a partially effective job of chasing the dream away. He splashes his face again, feels like he's peeling away grimy layers of false memory with it.

He'd thought, over the years, that he'd grown accustomed to nightmares. He smiles grimly at his reflection in the water, greying about the edges, as he thinks it. For the two years they had travelled together, Gerald Tarrant -- ex-prophet, undead sorcerer, and the Hunter of legend -- had searched his soul to find images to inspire terror in him and had haunted his dreams at night. All so the man could feed in ways that Damien could approve of. Sacrificing no innocents, just his own health and sanity.

(Few innocents, he has to admit. Tarrant always seemed to have his way in those things anyway).

It had begun because Damien had needed the adept's power. What it became over the years had become something much more complex -- need, fear, determination. Even regret for the problems that arose. Even affection.

Even desire? Damien wonders grimly, letting his hands rest in the basin as if that could get him any cleaner. Was the need for Tarrant's power, his presence, himself translated somehow into the physical? Damien can't imagine it, not by the early filtering pre-dawn light -- something he still finds himself watching for, for concern for someone who doesn't need it any more. He's never shown much of an interest in men; certainly, when he was just a boy, he'd played around, experimented. But it was women who did it for him; experienced and intelligent women, capable women, strong women.

Damien snorts to himself. _Listen to yourself,_ he thinks. _You have a nightmare about making -- about having sex with a disturbed abomination and diseased form of a man who made his own damnation. A man who used to be the most powerful figurehead of the Church you're still not used to being separate from. There's all kinds of reasons to be disturbed by that dream's implications, Vryce; the fact that Tarrant's a man is the least of your problems._

Still, it had been a nightmare bad enough that he could imagine Tarrant sending it back in the day. Not that he would have; it wasn't Tarrant's style. Oh, certainly, it had the hallmarks of Tarrant's dreams -- emotional complexity, a mix of hope and despair, the way positive feelings are turned against him. Sensations of uprooted identity. But sex -- even sex between men, or sex between women -- is an act of life. Mimicking the forms of procreation is still a symbolic act, and symbolism still has power; had much more power back in the days the fae were a Workable force. Tarrant would no more deliberately send a nightmare of intercourse than he'd send a nightmare of true fire or true sunlight. It'd tie too close to his own fears, the fear of his own death. And it is far too late now for Tarrant to be sending him nightmares, anyway.

Of course, Damien is forced to acknowledge after a long moment of consideration, this was the man who learned to tame the opposite of life's forces. If not living flesh, then dead to serve his purposes. If not sunlight, then the pale light of dark fae. If not fire, then coldfire.

What would Tarrant do with such a thing? That sort of fear and near-abuse, in that light, seemed remarkably like him, though Damien doubts Tarrant's flesh would be capable of performance in its old death-state. But then, what wasn't Tarrant's flesh capable of?

The thought chills him again.

And then he forces himself to laugh at himself. _And he wouldn't want to, even to keep you off guard, Vryce. The man liked women._ \-- For a very, very terrible definition of 'liked', of course. Damien thinks of Tarrant's personal hell, the writhing twitching forms of all the thousands of women he'd hunted to the death, and shivers. _And there's lots Tarrant's flesh wasn't capable of. Standing up to the light of the sun's the least of it. Besides. That's Tarrant as he was._

_Not Tarrant as he is._

The thought's an unsettling one and he tries not to think it, more because he'd be putting Tarrant's life -- or _whoever it is that isn't Tarrant_ 's life -- at risk by thinking it. Isn't that what the young man had said as the Forest burned? _"Detached from his old identity in thought or deed_ for fear of binding him to the sacrificial death the Hunter had chosen. _Unable to talk about it except in its most disassociated form._

Damien knows that technically, thinking it -- associating the name 'Gerald Tarrant' with that arrogant young man -- probably can't hurt anyone. He'd thought it at the time, after all, when he'd understood, really understood, what the man was saying. His entire being had welled with the unexpressed urge to shout the name after him. If that hadn't done it, thinking it casually wouldn't. He hopes. It's not something he's willing to bet Tarrant's life on.

 _You predictable bastard,_ Damien thinks vaguely towards wherever Tarrant's soul might be. As always, Tarrant had feared death enough to make a compact to avoid it. Just that this one -- this one is one Damien can accept. This one is one that leaves Tarrant human, leaves the path open in front of Tarrant to redeem himself, slowly. It may not be done in his lifetime, young as his new body is. But the chance is there, anyway. This compact is one made out of altruism. Out of two enemies finding common ground, coming to an agreement.

 _Not so bad, Hunter,_ Damien thinks. _It's a good start._

***

When the dream -- and others like it -- continue to recur, Damien is forced to acknowledge that the real driving force behind them isn't any question of his sexuality (though he's beginning to concur that his sexuality is _probably in question_ , a thought that he doesn't like but can cope with).

More like he misses the man.

More like, as always, the fact that Tarrant is such a completely complicated, interesting, convoluted man and Damien can't keep him off his mind. He's never understood the full depths of his interactions with Tarrant; he's always known that. His impulses have always been unclear to him. Travelling with Tarrant to keep an eye on him and use his power means also that he'd had to watch Tarrant commit atrocities, had forced his own faith to be shaken to the core. He'd always known the risk; he'd done it anyway. Sure, he'd needed Tarrant to get done what he needed to do -- but it's more than that, Damien knows. Has always known. What Tarrant is and was and had been and _could_ be... that's always fascinated him.

And it's not going away just because Tarrant's gone, changed. If anything, that's made it worse. Tarrant's found a new way of living -- he's found a path that _might redeem him_ and Damien, who'd sworn to kill the man or bring that spark of humanity to life, Damien who'd decided to die at his side countless times, who had promised not to let Tarrant die alone... Damien isn't there to see it.

He doesn't dare try to track the man down, even though he's got a face to tie Tarrant's new identity to, and several other features -- style of dress, personal habits (oh, does he know _those_ ), probable financial situation, and so on. It's not just how difficult it would be, though who knows if Tarrant's left the city by now.

He's just not sure if he's willing to risk that man's life now that it's a new one, just because he doubts he'll be able to shake the knowledge that that _was Tarrant_ from his mind.

It would be easier, he has to admit, if he could put the man from his mind.

***

And then, turning the thought over again some weeks later, still unable to quite get rid of it, Damien realizes he's being _stupid_.

Of course it's safe to make contact with Tarrant! Tarrant had made paranoia into an art form. Although Damien does believe that associating the old identity with the new had risk to Tarrant due to the sacrificial demands of the fae now, he is also sure that if Tarrant had believed himself in any risk just by communicating with Damien, he wouldn't have done it. Even if his new human nature felt that Damien deserved a chance to know or understand what had gone on, Damien figures that that young man wouldn't be so different as to risk death _just_ for that chance.

Was it closure? Was that what that young man had thought he was offering Damien? If that was the case, it was naive. And Damien couldn't imagine _him_ being naive. It was clear that he was still enough of Tarrant to understand Damien, how he'd react to that introduction in front of the burning Forest -- and if he knew that, he knew Damien wouldn't be able to get the possibilities out of his mind.

If there's one thing the Hunter surely understood, it was that desire to see something with great potential _reach_ that potential.

"You bastard," Damien breathes aloud.

It all starts to fall into place. The way he'd let Damien get a good look at him, hadn't tried to disguise his terribly familiar habits, but refused to give his name, almost coy about it. The way he'd talked to Damien in the first place. The slow unhurried way he'd walked when he must have known Damien would want to run after.

_He wants me to chase him._

It's so absurd Damien almost can't comprehend it for a moment. The Hunter is asking for a Hunt.

Just from a very different source. A very different kind. A Hunt so different from the Hunter's old ones as to be -- virtually impossible to tie to that old identity.

Damien almost doesn't want to give it to him. He _hates_ the way Tarrant's always predicted him so easily.

But again -- as _always_ \-- it seems his own interests lie perfectly in line with what Tarrant would manipulate him to do.

He exhales thoughtfully.

It can't hurt, he decides, to _look_.

***

Can't hurt, maybe, but it's not easy either. A young man in fancy dress with long braided black hair? An arrogant young noble with a pistol? In _this_ huge city?

Under normal circumstances it would, at least, be _easier_. If he could work the fae he could do a Locating -- or rather, since that wasn't his speciality, get someone to. But that's impossible now; he has to rely on other methods. He even tries to use the channel between them -- Tarrant _had_ said it would probably last even after death -- but other than a faint impression of _daily life_ , he can't seem to use it.

Instead there are only more mundane agents to work through. Damien dislikes the idea of hiring a private investigator to find the man, but he looks around anyway. It is, he hates to admit it, outside his expertise. And when that happens, you have to find someone whose expertise it _is_. Even if it feels like he'd be inviting a stranger to intrude on a private matter.

He finds a number of names and hesitates on using any one of them. And then, glancing down the list he's received, the legitimate businessmen side by side with the less so -- he's learned well from Tarrant that what people will do is often better than how they'll do it, much as he hates to admit it -- he comes across a name that makes him blink.

Some investigation into the matter reveals that the man runs a Hunt Shop, mostly to sell gear for hunting expeditions, but is also known to be a hunter himself -- not always just of animals. He apparently has a high rate of success in finding missing persons, often violently.

Damien's lips tighten. Well, he thinks.

He could be useful.

***

The Hunt Shop is exactly the sort of place Damien has began to feel comfortable in -- and isn't that a depressing thought. Dark, narrow, full of dangerous weaponry and traps of various kinds, and with extremely unnerving hunting pictures on the wall.

 _Tarrant would like it,_ Damien thinks.

"Excuse me," he asks the man behind the desk, whose frame has the bearing of a clerk rather than a hunter, "I'm here to find Riven Forrest."

"Please, go on back," the clerk says, and gestures to a door.

Easier than he'd expected, he has to admit. He thanks the man, and heads through the door.

The hallway leading back is long, narrow, and designed to intimidate. Damien recognizes the signs -- the length, the angle of the wood, the dim lighting, the ever-present gory pictures of hunters and prey, humans and animal alike -- even as they affect him nevertheless. He's been worse places, of course -- so many worse that he can barely even _count_ them, but even that doesn't prevent a faint shiver from touching his spine. Whoever owns this place clearly intends to drive out those too weak-spirited to handle whatever it is he'd do in the course of their jobs.

Damien shrugs his shoulder to redistribute the weight of his sword -- not that he thinks he'll need it, but not that he thinks he _won't_ , either -- then knocks on the door at the end of the hall.

"Enter," a cool voice says.

Damien enters and he is struck with two images at once:

First, the portrait over the desk. It's Gerald Tarrant as Damien knew him in the last few scanty hours, skin tones pale but yet that of a living man, fine pale brown hair elegantly styled around his face, held back by a simple gold coronet. It draws a gasp to his throat that he refuses to quite let out, swallows back the air.

Second, Riven Forrest himself seated beneath, no older than twenty-two, his waist-length black hair held back in an efficient ponytail, his silks draped gracefully about himself. He doesn't seem particularly surprised to see Damien.

"Well," he says mildly. "What a surprise; the man from the Forest."

Damien stares at him. He opens his mouth, sucks in a quick breath of air.

When it comes out, he finds himself saying, " _Riven Forrest_? That name is _stupid._ "

Forrest lifts a brow. It's the type of expression that doesn't come naturally; he's practised it. There's enough naturalness to the gesture that he's had to practice it a very long time indeed. He says, "It's served me well enough in my life."

With effort, Damien reins himself in, reminds himself where he is and what's at stake if he doesn't take care. He glances up at the portrait of the Hunter. _Is_ that _taking care?_ he demands silently. _Isn't that explicitly drawing a connection?_

Forrest follows his gaze. "It interests you?"

"It reminds me of someone," Damien says, neutrally.

Forrest's eyes glitter for a moment. They're very, very dark. Familiarly so. "A relative," he says. "My father, in fact."

Again, castigation for his carelessness is on Damien's tongue. Again, he swallows it back. This man is still enough of Tarrant to not be careless. "Your father?"

"Did you know him?"

Of course, his father. It fits Tarrant's humour perfectly, and also shows how well he learns from his mistakes -- it's the same trick, Damien realizes abruptly, that the Church used to bring down the Forest, only in reverse. Where they had used Andrys Tarrant to pass as the Hunter his ancestor, so that the Forest would be fooled into letting him pass, this man -- Riven Forrest -- is pretending to be a descendant. It claims a separation from the previous identity -- a father is not his own son, after all -- and also helps justify any similarities; a son is _expected_ to resemble his father in a number of ways. Although close investigation would prove the impossibility of such a claim, given the narrowness of the Tarrant family line's survival due to Tarrant's own weeding -- there would be no such close investigation. It's not people that Tarrant is worried about finding out; people wouldn't know to look. And the fae, who hold his life in their insubstantial hands, _could_ not look; the fae read symbols and impressions, not facts, and symbolically Forrest is most certainly the offspring Tarrant left behind.

Damien drops his gaze admiringly to Forrest again, and it takes him a moment to even remember that Forrest had asked him a question. He shrugs in answer. "You remind me a bit of him," he says.

Forrest's dark eyes glitter again. His lips twitch in a faint thin smile. "I'll take that as a compliment."

Damien snorts. "Don't."

Forrest laughs. It's a quiet sound, an almost pale sound, without much behind it -- but it's real laughter, genuine laughter. There's even a faint warmth in it. For a moment Damien's heart tightens in his chest; _thank you, God,_ he thinks, suddenly fervent, _for giving me this day!_

Slowly, Forrest folds one hand over another on the desk, and leans forward. "But surely you didn't come here to discuss my unfortunately deceased father," he says. "What business do you have, Mer--?"

This part should feel strange; it doesn't. He offers his hand. "Damien. Damien Vryce."

"Mer Vryce, then," Forrest says easily. "I'm at your service."

It's familiar, but with so many of the edges _different_. Damien grins at him despite himself, thinks, _I doubt that_. "I'd been hoping to find somebody."

"That is what I do," Forrest says. He smiles thinly. "...Essentially."

Damien shakes his head. "It won't be necessary."

"Ah, is that so?"

"Yeah. Turns out my business is dealt with."

"Fortuitous for you," Forrest acknowledges. He lifts his brow again. "Then if I may show you out?"

Damien blinks at him. _He's trying to dismiss me!_ That, he thinks, he is not going to allow to happen. "Well--"

Forrest's fingers fold together again on the desk. A nervous habit, or just idle? "Is there something else?"

"When do you get off work?" Damien asks.

Both brows go this time. Not bad, Damien congratulates himself. "It will be dark in a few hours."

"And do you get off work when it's dark?"

Another thin, carefully-measured smile. "I leave the shop when it's dark, at least," Forrest says mildly.

Damien says, "So do you want to get a drink? Maybe dinner?"

For a long moment, Forrest is completely still. Even that stillness is familiar. Damien waits for it to crack, waits for Forrest to have chased down every implication and gutted it to the best of his satisfaction.

Finally, Forrest stirs. "Mer Vryce," he says, and his voice is not without humour. "Are you attempting to pick me up?"

 _Oh, to hell with it._ Damien shrugs at him pointedly. Wherever this goes, it goes.

Forrest glances down and smiles. "I'll think about it," he promises. "But for now I have work to do. Return when it's dark, and let's see what I've decided, shall we?"

Damien almost frowns at him. He knows this man, knows that if Forrest can say that much then he's already decided one way or the other. He just wants Damien to sweat for it.

Once upon a time, Damien would have forced himself to excuse the behaviour because of how much he needed the Hunter's power.

Now, he had to admit, it pretty much just came down to needing the _Hunter_.

"I'll see if I can swing by," Damien says.

***

By the time Damien returns, Forrest is waiting outside the shop, calm and patient. Damien admires him a bit as he approaches; to most people's gaze, Forrest must look dangerous still, perhaps even give people the chill reminiscent of a lingering creature of true night. But to Damien's eyes, that's all different; the demonic no longer hangs around him in a tangible chill. He's just a man who is, after all, a creature of long habit.

Forrest turns and sees him approaching, inclines his head with good grace.

Damien nods back. "I found a nice place," he says. "If you'd care to go to dinner."

"Dinner," Forrest says. He still seems faintly amused. "What a thought, to share a meal with you."

Damien shrugs. "I'm sure it'll be a different experience than you're used to," he says, equally dry, and Forrest laughs again, soft.

"Then," Forrest says. "Do lead the way."

Damien does. Dinner is spent in a combination of comfortable silence and awkward pauses. Forrest doesn't talk about himself, which is really entirely fair given the circumstances; Damien feels strange talking about himself to someone who already knows it all. Instead they talk about the city -- how the wards are holding, the lingering sorceries, the implications on the fading fae presence for the permanence of Workings.

"Eventually, they'll fail," Forrest says. He sounds faintly sad, faintly triumphant. "They will last until they fail; most Workings do, after all. But even their lifespan is limited. It may not," he says, and his voice has gone thoughtful and faintly self-mocking, "be in our lifetime. But at some point, Erna will become as if it were Earth."

"It might be sooner than you think," Damien says. "Who knows? Sometimes, you see all sorts of things happen in your own lifetime that you think'd take thousands of years at best."

If Forrest catches what he's getting at, he doesn't respond to it. Instead he simply says, "I suppose that's true. And, after all--" and his dark eyes have a hint of humour in them, "--I'm young yet."

***

Forrest accompanies Damien back to his lodgings. It's just as well; Damien doesn't want to part with him yet, but would feel extremely odd offering to escort Forrest home the way he might a woman. It's prejudice on his own part, he's aware; he's been with plenty of women who don't need his help to get home. But the thought had made him uncomfortable; it was with relief that he'd accepted Forrest's offer to walk with him, at least as far as Damien's own lodgings.

That he's more comfortable being escorted was really something he didn't want to think about. But it _is_ easier to act as if they're just strolling together, this way, and it's got none of the feminine trappings -- no arms around each other, nothing of the sort. He has his hands in his pocket; Forrest has his tucked behind his back, and they walk side by side comfortably.

When they get there, Damien hesitates. It's not that he really wants where this is going, he thinks; he just doesn't want the opposite. He says, "Would you like to come up for a drink?"

"It's getting late," Forrest says, gently. The Core is on its way to setting; he's right, more time has passed than Damien was aware of.

Damien doesn't think, however, Forrest is trying to say no. More as though Forrest is trying to give him an out.

 _Like I need one._ Damien grits his teeth; refuses Forrest's act of slightly-mocking mercy. "So it is."

"I don't know that you'd have the sort of thing I like," Forrest says, and the sharp edge of humour is audible in his voice.

"Can't know until you've tried," Damien says philosophically.

Forrest's smile this time is wider than the others -- amused and knife-sharp. "In that case," he says. "I accept."

Damien nods, takes a deep breath to steady himself, and leads the way up the stairs.

***

They don't really make it to the drink or, more to the point, the bed. They get in the door to his apartment; Damien turns and opens his mouth to say something, and gets captured by the darkness of Forrest's eyes. Forrest reaches out, takes careful hold of the front of Damien's shirt, and yanks.

Forrest's mouth tastes faintly sour.

Damien kisses him with some care; Forrest laughs a little at that, mockingly, and bites down on his lip with enough force to make Damien hiss into his mouth. When he lets up, Damien's lip throbs lightly -- but Forrest's mouth is warm and alive.

Kisses multiply; it should feel strange, Damien thinks, when Forrest's hand nimbly undoes the front of Damien's pants -- no fumbling, Damien can't help but notice sourly; his hand is perfectly steady -- and he groans as Forrest's hand closes around him.

And then it _does_ feel strange and he draws a slow shuddering breath. "Ge--"

And then the heel of Forrest's other hand shoves itself hard into his open mouth, wedging his jaw open.

"Shut up, Vryce," Forrest says amicably, and rolls them against the wall, one hand pushing until Damien's jaw aches, and damn but he can't get an angle to bite down to try to stop him, the other grasping his cock firmly and jerking.

Damien is aware he could probably through Forrest off if he was willing to try -- and willing to accept certain _damage_. It takes a moment of tensing, waiting for his opportunity before Forrest's wrist twists and his thumb rubs firmly over the head, and Damien slowly sinks back, groaning, and reminds himself he started this.

And that he's getting outdone.

He tries to mutter a curse at Forrest; he can't get it out past the hand wedging his mouth painfully wide, but he thinks Forrest hears it anyway; his lips part in a faint smile. Suddenly Damien wants little more than to wipe that from his face, and he reaches out, fumbles aside the clothing in the way and unlaces Forrest.

"Ah," Forrest murmurs.

Damien would grin, but even that moment of shock, Forrest's eyes half-lidding and a shudder going through his frame, isn't enough to let him relent on the hand in Damien's mouth.

It doesn't matter, Damien soon finds. It hurts and he's having trouble heaving, great gasps trying to come around the hand and not having space, but Forrest's hand is slick and hot and fast and unrelenting, and he refuses to do any less, works Forrest until his wrist's aching and Forrest is making a small shocked noise in his throat and coming against him.

It's impossible, should be impossible, but between the pain and pleasure and the sight of Gerald doing that, _Riven_ doing that, Damien's foundations seem shaken and he comes almost without warning, groaning against the hand muffling him.

For a few moments they're just sprawled together. And then Damien pushes Forrest away, and Forrest goes, letting Damien's mouth go again.

Hot, sweaty, Damien tries to catch his breath. Unconcerned, Forrest rolls his shoulders against the wall and watches him through lazy, dark eyes, as he lifts his hand and checks the damage. He's bleeding sluggishly, bright and hot blood.

"Well, Vryce," Forrest says after a moment. "You're always full of surprises."

For him, it only sounds slightly sarcastic.

Damien snorts, looks for someplace to wipe his hand off, and just barely avoids bodily harm when he catches the look Forrest is giving him when he reaches for Forrest's undone shirt.

He uses his own instead and bundles it, tossing it in his bundle of dirty laundry.

"I see you have baths down the hall," Forrest says. "Do you mind if I excuse myself?"

Damien snorts again. "Go ahead. Sticking around after?"

"We'll see," Forrest says.

Damien tidies the room a bit while Forrest bathes.

"If you're going to be sticking around," he says, when Forrest enters again, his hair wet and neatly tied back and looking otherwise pristine, "I'm going to use the baths around."

Forrest's nose doesn't -- quite -- wrinkle. "Possibly an idea, Vryce."

"You weren't complaining half an hour ago," Damien says as he passes.

***

By the time he gets back, Forrest has had enough time to go through Damien's belongings. He has a map spread out on a table and is sitting with his arm resting on it, watching the door. It's obviously a deliberate pose.

"...Okay," Damien says. "What?"

Forrest smiles faintly. "Vryce," he says. "You'll pardon the suddenness of this, but let me make an offer to you. I could use your experience, you see."

Damien stops towelling his hair, drapes it around his neck instead. "What do you have in mind?"

"I was going to travel," Forrest says easily. "To the remnants of the Hunter's fortress."

Damien frowns. Even now, it's not a good place to be -- and the surviving architecture is unstable and dangerous at best, near collapse from structural damage. "Why?"

"I imagine even with the fire and the explosions, some of the Hunter's original notes might survive," Forrest says. "They might be useful." He smiles thinly.

"And you want me to go with you."

Forrest shrugs philosophically and traces a route idly on the map with a fingernail. "It was a thought."

"It's a suicidal one," Damien points out.

"I won't say it's perfectly safe," Forrest says dryly. "But there are paths and pockets and rooms in that fortress that must have survived; it would be a shame to just let the knowledge there just disappear."

Damien opens his mouth.

Then he shuts it and sighs. One way or the other, sooner or later, Forrest's going to talk him into it. He knows how this goes between them; and it's not like he'll let Forrest go alone when it's that dangerous.

"Well," he says. "What the hell."

"Let's hope not," Forrest says, and he smiles again. "Can you leave shortly."

"Sure," Damien says, sighing. "After I pick up supplies. Tomorrow night?"

"Ah," Forrest says. "Actually--"

"Yes?"

"The next morning," Forrest says, "would be fine. I rather fancy the sunlight."

 


End file.
